Agent of Chaos
by thebluevalentine
Summary: Joker One-shot. Pre-TDK, Circa BB. One possible version of events that led a normal man to become the Clown Prince of Gotham.


"Jack?"

The voice was so quiet that, at first, he thought he'd been mistaken in hearing it. But after a minute, the woman repeated herself, and Jack stood up.

"Hullo, Mr. Napier." she smiled brightly as he approached, reaching for a pen in the breast pocket of her scrubs and checking something off on her clipboard. Jack said nothing, and put his hands into the pockets of his coat. He shifted his weight back and forth between his feet, eager to leave as soon as possible. When he glanced around the room, he never met anyone's eye, but he knew the other patients were looking at him – staring at him – all because they wanted a good look at his scars.

Ever since the "accident," this was Jack's normal routine. Wake up, try to find work, go to therapy, force himself to eat something, and go to bed – just to do it all over again the next day. It was a pretty normal life: passionless, fruitless, and above all, empty. What's more, he'd begun having the nightmares again. Images of his fiendish father, memories of his short-lived childhood, and flashes of blood-spattered knives swirled in his unconscious mind, promising no relief from his miserable existence, even in sleep. He'd wake in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat – and then he'd laugh, for no reason at all; insane bouts of hysteria that forced him to laugh until he either tired himself out or until it hurt too much to let it continue.

And what was the doctor's magical cure? Pills. The doctor had prescribed him yet another bottle of pills. He walked out of the therapist's office, prescription in hand, furious at the thought of returning there every day for who knew how long… Gotham hated him, he thought, and he hated Gotham. He wanted to die, but he wanted the world dead with him. He wanted to bring Gotham and its disgusting inhabitants to their knees, to show them how their best and brightest could be brought down with a simple, little…push. There was something satisfying in the thought of a world without rules, without logic. It was a fiery brand of chaos that coursed unbridled and wild throughout the world, and all he had to do was set it loose.

Jack stopped and sat down on a nearby bench, beads of sweat beginning to dot his brow. He swore under his breath, cursing himself for having such thoughts, and threw back two of his pills.

When he arrived outside his apartment building that night, he found no one around. The only things that greeted him were the smell of rotting trash and the quick gleam of a stray cat's eye. Approaching the main door, Jack hoped that it wouldn't be locked. However, a quick turn of the knob confirmed his suspicions. He sighed. His landlady, an obnoxious French woman, had still refused to give him a key to this door, saying that any responsible man would return before dark to avoid the city crime, and that it was her way of weeding out the criminals. Jack suspected she may have left her sanity back in Cherbourg.

Still, the sudden wail of sirens burst through the air, and he figured she had something of a point. Coming down the three front steps, Jack made his way over to the building's first floor windows. By now he knew which one led into the landlady's office, and he reached into his jeans for his pocket knife, flipped it open, and jabbed the tip under the lower sash of the window, thankful for the apparent laziness of the installer. The window slid open without a fight, allowing him to slip inside, unnoticed.

Or, so he thought.

Without warning, there was an audible click, and the room was immersed in the golden glow of the woman's desk lamp. Jack's heart sank.

"So," she said, glaring at him from behind her desk. "zis is how you 'ave been getting in?"

"Well, I don't have a key." Jack responded, trying to sound as apologetic as possible.

"Zey are privileges." She said. "I only give zem to people that I know are trustworzy."

"So you think you can judge a person's character based on the time they show up?" he spat without thinking, the stress of the day pressing on his words. He instantly regretted it.

The landlady's face turned red. "Vous avez peu de brat!" she screamed. "I took you in after your accident, gave you a place to stay even zough you didn't have a job, and zis is how you repay me? By breaking in to my office! I 'ave put up wit' you for far too long, I think. Zis is your last night 'ere." Jack opened his mouth in protest but she stopped him with a hand. "No more excuses, Monsieur Napier. We are through."

She motioned for him to leave, and Jack grudgingly obliged. Turning left, he exited the office and made straight for the main stairs, passing six or so rooms on either side before he reached their base. Avoiding the rotted, crumbling sections of the wood, he climbed the eight flights of stairs that lead to his rooftop apartment, number 48.

His room - while larger than the others because of its location - was the probably the least homely of them all. It was a bleak, dimly lit space, with no photos or "personal affects" to brighten up the feel of the place. There was no real need of them: Jack had no family anymore. At least, not since his wife had left him. On one side of the room there was a bed, a nightstand, and a doorway leading to the stall-sized bathroom. On the other side stood a small table, and sitting quietly atop the once polished surface was dust-covered sewing machine, ringed with strips of cloth in shades of blue, green, and purple. Backed against the rear wall, a cracked, grime-covered mirror reflected the image of the various make-ups, dyes, brushes and combs that sat on a stand below it. They had belonged to his wife, but she hadn't bothered to take them when she left, and they sat, like everything else, collecting large amounts of dust. Finally, in the center of the room there were a table and chair, worn with use, placed directly underneath a light bulb dangling from the ceiling.

Making his way into the bathroom, Jack flicked on the light and opened the medicine cabinet, placing the bottle of pills from earlier inside. When he closed the door, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror on the reverse side. Staring back at him was a man with scraggly, dirty-blond hair that hung in thick strands and threatened to cover his dark brown eyes. On his shoulders, there rested a thick, tan coat that partially hid a stripped shirt and blue jeans from view. He was an ordinary man but for the scars along his cheeks. They stretched from the corners of his mouth all the way up, ending under the cheek bones themselves, giving him a blotched, malformed smile. A Glasgow smile.

Triggered by the sight of his own image in the mirror, Jack's muscles tensed as bits of memory flashed before his eyes. His father. He'd come home drunk one night, angry about something that happened at work. Jack couldn't remember what it was that had set him off, but he'd never forget what happened next.

"_Why so serious?"_ his father asked him, sticking the blade of his knife in Jack's mouth. He pressed the cold steel further into Jack's cheek, laughing at the sight of the blood that had begun to dribble down the face of the blade. _"Let's put a smile on that face!"_

Next, his wife.

"_No, I never thought you were ugly,"_ she said, _"And I know it's not your fault… But I...I can't bear to look at you anymore. I'm so sorry Jack…I just can't love you anymore. Not when you look like this."_

Then, a word. It rang like a bell within his mind, drowning out all other thoughts.

_Freak._

It was a frightening thing to be summed up so completely by a single word. Jack was a freak, of that he was certain. Nothing else could describe him. Nothing, he thought, that wouldn't distort the already pitiful truth. He looked away from the mirror, storming out into the main room and twisting the chair towards the window as he sat, looking at the city beyond.

_Freak._

Jack _hated_ the word. He hated the people that had given him that name, how they had cast him out, a leper of society. He hated all the random injustices that seemed to be overtaking his life. He hated how the rules of this unsympathetic world had turned against him, shielding those who deserved punishment and stepping on the hands of their victims. But more than anything, Jack hated himself. He'd followed all the rules, played societies game, and welcomed the people that disgusted him the most without question. He knew now that when the chips were down, the so-called 'civilized' people... they would eat each other. Their morals, their code... It was all just a lie, a way for them to separate themselves from their true nature. But how loyal is a hungry dog?

Anger surged inside Jack's chest, growing stronger and fiercer with each wasted breath he took. People are only as good as the world allowed them to be, and suddenly Jack thought of something: the only sensible way to live this world was without rules. He'd thought about it before, dreamed of it, but never really considered doing it. But Jack just smiled. This charade had gone on long enough. It wasn't about him anymore. No, no, no, no, this was about something much... much better.

Thoughts raced inside his mind, nearly as quick as his fingers against the table surface. Suddenly he realized: he couldn't do this as 'Jack.' _His_ thoughts turned in a completely different direction than they should. They were weak, and stupid, and subject to the whims of every 'helper' out there. He had to be someone different.

Dragging his chair along with him, he rushed over to the stand with the fabrics. Hunching over the sewing machine, his face darkened as his brow furrowed in concentration. He tossed his ideas as quickly as they came, rubbing his aching temples as he tried thinking of something – anything – that would liberate him from himself.

Nothing.

Furious now, he lashed out, swinging his arm across the table and knocking the machine to the ground in a hail of fabric. But something else fell with it: a deck of cards. Upon hitting the ground, the box split open and its contents exploded out across the hard-wood floor. Jack stared at it. Directly atop the pile, one card sat in clear view – the Joker. He smiled. It was a funny world he lived in.

Gathering up his fallen materials, Jack didn't hesitate. The sewing machine sputtered to life as he started stitching the threads - overlapping, twisting, pulling everything together. Adding an elegant shade of purple to the needle, he paused for a moment to wipe the sweat off his face. His neck had started cramping now, and the constant noise was beginning to annoy him, but his tongue danced around his lips as he urged himself to continue.

He sat in his chair for what seemed like hours, stopping over and over again to rip apart his creations and start again, irked by their multitudes of imperfections. But eventually the pieces he had torn apart were merged back together, and, grinning gleefully to himself, he threw away his old clothes in favor of his new ensemble: a simple, raggedy green and purple suit. It was bright. It was flashy. And he loved it.

Jack then turned to the table with the make-up. He stared at himself in the mirror for a few moments, not bothering to flinch as his eyes wandered over his scars, and quickly decided what he had to do. He reached for one of the tubes of face paint – a leftover Halloween token – before squeezing the ivory contents into his hands, and smearing it onto his face. He worked at it for several minutes, covering every bit of pink flesh he could find. Once he removed his hands, he allowed the excess paint to dribble down his neck as he admired his handiwork.

Next, he grabbed a tube of black... something. He couldn't identify it without a label, but regardless, he dipped his fingertips into the concoction and rubbed it around his eyes in messy rings – careful to avoid the eyes themselves - until he reached the outside of the sockets. Finally, he took up one of the tubes of lipstick and ran it across his lips, coating them in bright crimson – but he didn't stop there. He continued coating the waxy substance up onto his face, tracing the scars and highlighting them for all the world to see. The people gave him his smile – why shouldn't he show them how much he enjoyed it?

The last thing he grabbed was a tube of hair dye. It had passed it's date, but he couldn't have cared less. He coated his fingers with it and ran them through ever inch of his hair, watching with satisfaction as his once blond locks turned a vivid shade of green.

_Funny,_ he thought. _It matched his clothes._

Jack stood up from his chair, eying himself thoughtfully in the mirror. He laughed. He looked utterly ridiculous, but oh, how he rejoiced! From this point on, he was a new man, and he loved everything that he had done. As he considered his new look, he noticed that, in a strange way, he felt almost complete. Almost. He still needed a name. Walking back to the mess of cards on the floor, he gathered them up and placed them delicately into his pocket so that he wouldn't lose them.

He laughed again, thinking of all the wonderful things he was about to do to Gotham. 'Jack' was dead. That man had already been forgotten, submerged within the subconscious of this new animal. Walking out of the one room apartment, he took nothing but the cards and several knives he had taken from the kitchen. It wasn't about him anymore. It was about sending a message: everything burns.

Tonight, people were going to die – the first of many. He was a man of his word. An agent of chaos. The Joker.


End file.
